Meetings

Show Notes

Summary

Sara and Mathias tackle meetings, a topic that gets its own chapter in their book (aptly titled "Meetings, Meetings, Meetings"). They open with stats: Atlassian found 72% of meetings are ineffective, and Stanford Business School found over half rated poor. From there they dig into why meetings go bad (no agenda, no facilitation plan, unstructured status updates, meeting hogs, introvert/extrovert dynamics) and what actually makes them work. Sara introduces her framework of three meeting types: cadence (recurring, like 1:1s and team syncs), catalyst (decision-making or brainstorming, requiring heavy prep), and context (knowledge-sharing and alignment). They discuss the "meeting audit" practice for evaluating purpose and value, when in-person beats virtual, and the risks and benefits of one-on-ones. Mathias closes with a hot take that unprepared brainstorming meetings are "utter garbage." They wrap with a casual segment on kimchi-making, knife sharpening, Bruce Springsteen's memoir, and a Haim concert.

Keywords

meeting agendas, facilitation, meeting audit, cadence meetings, catalyst meetings, context meetings, one-on-ones, "pulling a Mathias," brainstorming meetings, in-person vs. virtual

Takeaways

• No agenda, no meeting. Lack of a clear purpose or agenda shared in advance is cited as the single biggest driver of ineffective meetings.

• "Pull a Mathias." If a meeting has no agenda by the day before, cancel it, a practice they've named and normalized in their book.

• Meetings need active facilitation, not just a topic and a room. Planning how to get input from everyone (not just the loudest voice) is a distinct, undertaught skill.

• Rotate meeting roles (facilitator, notetaker, timekeeper) so skills and responsibility get distributed across the team instead of concentrated in one person.

• The three C's of meetings: cadence (recurring), catalyst (decisions or brainstorms, needing heavy prep), and context (alignment or knowledge-sharing). Each requires different energy and preparation.

• Run a regular meeting audit: review who's in each meeting, whether it still has purpose and value, and whether it should be combined, reformatted, or cut.

• Cap recurring meetings at 90 days by default, forcing a periodic "is this still serving us?" check-in rather than letting meetings run indefinitely.

• In-person makes the most sense for high-stakes, multi-day work (quarterly planning, offsites), and it still requires serious advance preparation, not just travel.

• One-on-ones should build rapport and growth, not become update dumps or an information "telephone game." Routine information-sharing is better done in writing.

• Unprepared brainstorming meetings are close to worthless. Without structure, groups tend toward a lowest-common-denominator outcome rather than genuine creative output.

Chapters

00:00 The Frustration of Meetings

02:46 Understanding Ineffective Meetings

06:03 The Cycle of Poor Meeting Practices

08:54 Identifying Barriers to Effective Meetings

12:00 The Importance of Agenda and Facilitation

14:48 The Role of Clarity and Expectations

17:58 In-Person vs Virtual Meetings

20:57 Preparing for Effective Meetings

32:41 Effective Meeting Preparation

34:26 Meeting Audits: Assessing Value and Purpose

38:57 The Importance of One-on-Ones

47:08 Navigating the Controversy of One-on-Ones

54:22 The Art of Meeting Facilitation

Transcript

Mathias Meyer (00:00) Then the tune went...

Sara Hicks (00:04) Alrighty. Okay, so we're talking about meetings today and for many of us meetings can be incredibly frustrating,

Mathias Meyer (00:14) Mm-hmm.

Sara Hicks (00:14) very challenging, and quite often a considerable waste of time. And so as I was, you know, researching and doing some prep for this episode, I found some stats, Mathias, that

Sara Hicks (00:30) I wrote in our notes that I think they're pretty bonkers.

Mathias Meyer (00:34) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (00:35) so Atlassian did a survey, and I think they talked with over 1,000 companies. And the data was that 72 % of meetings are deemed ineffective. 72 %? That's bonkers. And then there was another study that I saw that was out of Stanford Business School, and they claim that more than half of meetings are rated as poor.

Mathias Meyer (01:01) That's an interesting distinction though. Like do we have any insight as to what Atlassians survey people deem as ineffective?

Sara Hicks (01:11) That's a good follow-up. I'll have to look into

Mathias Meyer (01:14) Okay.

Sara Hicks (01:14) that. don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, what about them made a minute effective? But I think we'll probably touch on that in some way.

Mathias Meyer (01:21) Probably.

Mathias Meyer (01:21) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (01:23) So yes, in this episode, we're going to talk about our favorite topic. Well, maybe not favorite, but which is meetings. It's also a chapter in our book, The Intentional Organization. The chapter is actually called Meetings, Meetings, Meetings. Matias,

Mathias Meyer (01:39) Mm-hmm.

Sara Hicks (01:41) do you know why we called it? Remember why we called it Meetings, Meetings, Meetings?

Mathias Meyer (01:45) I want to because there's so many of them.

Sara Hicks (01:53) Yeah, yeah, there's so many

Mathias Meyer (01:54) Okay.

Sara Hicks (01:55) of them. And then we all are so exhausted. So we're just like meetings, meetings, meetings, right?

Mathias Meyer (02:01) We could have also called it back to back, which is almost like a verb in a badge of honor. But somehow that doesn't appeal as much. And maybe it's

Sara Hicks (02:12) Right, right.

Mathias Meyer (02:13) too close.

Sara Hicks (02:15) So I think in this episode we want to dive into the kind of the why behind all these poor and ineffective meetings and maybe share some tips for improving improving your meetings going forward. How's that sound, Matthias?

Mathias Meyer (02:34) Sounds good to me.

Sara Hicks (02:37) Okay, so I'm just gonna put you on the spot.

Mathias Meyer (02:39) Okay.

Sara Hicks (02:40) do you think people hate meetings so much?

Mathias Meyer (02:46) Where do we even begin? How much time do we have for this episode? Let's see, let's, mean, you know, the word ineffective probably is the word. I like almost preferred the word poor in the second survey that you quoted, the Stanford Business School one. And I think poor, maybe a little bit easier to define in that, you know, referring to how a meaning is run. How it's run.

Sara Hicks (03:13) you

Mathias Meyer (03:15) Are there any decisions being made or are there any notes being taken? Those kinds of things. Like, is it clear what happens after the meeting? And, you know, my experience, and I will also say like for meetings that in my early days as an executive and founder were just, they didn't, they didn't achieve any of those things. Like they were unstructured, unplanned,

Sara Hicks (03:40) You

Mathias Meyer (03:42) people were unprepared.

Mathias Meyer (03:45) usually because they also keep running from meeting to meeting and there's no time to prepare. And then during the meeting, people just keep, there are people who hog these meetings or just keep talking all the time,

Sara Hicks (03:48) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (03:58) who talk over others. Sometimes people are put on the spot in meetings to make a comment and a decision and only speak for myself, at least maybe my earlier days that used to make me quite uncomfortable.

Sara Hicks (04:02) you you

Mathias Meyer (04:14) Like when a topic started coming up in a meeting, came only up in that meeting and then I was already expected to have an opinion about it. Especially when you fall more on the introverted side of things. That's a difficult thing. And so there's also an interesting gap between folks who more introverted and folks who are more extroverted. For folks who are extroverted, meaning is the default medium, so to speak. And if people are introverted, they can take stuff in.

Mathias Meyer (04:43) and then take it with them, think about it, and then maybe write up a thing. And I think that's

Sara Hicks (04:46) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (04:48) maybe a rough idea for me, like why people don't like them so much, and also because there are just so many of them. And when you have this many meetings, and they're all not well run, it's just frustrating. It used to be incredibly,

Sara Hicks (05:09) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (05:10) incredibly frustrating for me.

Mathias Meyer (05:13) in the in those years like

Sara Hicks (05:16) No.

Mathias Meyer (05:17) what do you think is there

Sara Hicks (05:19) you touched on so many good things in there. I even wrote down, mean all the un, unplanned, unprepared, unstructured, and then the personas that just happen in meetings that we don't really consider the meeting hog, the introverts, the extroverts. Yeah, and the fact that we're just in this perpetual cycle of meetings, just, it's hard to...

Sara Hicks (05:49) It's hard to get out of it.

Mathias Meyer (05:52) It's an odd hamster wheel.

Sara Hicks (05:54) Yeah, yeah, there's this just we get into these this rut, right? These habits around meetings and they're just not.

Sara Hicks (06:03) Yeah, they're not fun.

Mathias Meyer (06:07) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (06:10) Which is why I think these stats just aren't that surprising to me. I've been part

Mathias Meyer (06:13) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (06:14) of problem. Let me just be clear. I've run some terrible meetings throughout my career that have not been all the buzzwords. They're not optimized for efficiency or effectiveness. I've been the back to back, just

Mathias Meyer (06:28) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (06:29) go from meeting to meeting to meeting.

Sara Hicks (06:32) I've fallen into it myself with my teams.

Mathias Meyer (06:36) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (06:37) Matias, mean, you even witnessed it when you first joined Reaction Commerce. You joined a bunch of meetings and yeah, we just, we fell into, you know, what worked in the earlier days just had stopped working, but we hadn't really assessed it or changed it and kept

Mathias Meyer (06:53) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (06:55) adding more people to meetings and it just becomes this, yeah, it's a problem.

Mathias Meyer (07:01) Yeah, I mean, I felt that because I've done, I've done the same things in a previous founder and executive cycle where there were just nine people in meetings or nine or more even at times. and then, it became just a very monotonous, you know, some updates. Well, there's something happening here. There's something happening there, but I don't really have anything to.

Mathias Meyer (07:31) yet. And so you just go from person to person. you know, even whether I will be honest, like I haven't had

Sara Hicks (07:31) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (07:40) meetings in an actual meeting room. Maybe I haven't had many of them over the last 10 years. So I've just had more been looking at, you know, the tiny, tiny squares or rectangles of people on screens. And you could just see how, you know, as soon maybe an anticipation of

Mathias Meyer (08:00) Maybe they started paying attention when they were almost next, but then they stopped paying attention instantly again after they were done and focusing on

Sara Hicks (08:04) Yeah. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (08:10) something else, right? And even when you then talk to people afterwards, like, well, just, you know, send some emails and things. Well, it doesn't really concern me. Like I wasn't really that interested in it, which is like the other part of why people just don't like meetings. it's

Sara Hicks (08:25) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (08:28) like they are...

Mathias Meyer (08:29) they just feel like everyone's giving an update and there's nothing you get out of it because on a weekly basis these updates maybe aren't as interesting or maybe there's a cross-department meeting which is

Sara Hicks (08:43) Yep. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (08:48) what was the case for as I went adjoint reaction and it was also the case in my previous leadership team.

Mathias Meyer (08:54) And people just, you know, people either don't really say a lot because they think that nobody else cares or people just really share a lot and well, nobody cares. it's just,

Sara Hicks (09:01) You

Mathias Meyer (09:08) it's just, it is odd. you know,

Sara Hicks (09:11) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (09:11) when the become just these status updates with some, some of us, norm, like this, this, this almost inevitable temptation.

Mathias Meyer (09:23) for a meeting to move from, well, we're a small team and this is actually clicking very well and this is serving a nice purpose for us to 10 or more people just going through, I did this, this happened, next. Which was actually, I think

Sara Hicks (09:38) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (09:45) the very first meeting, the very first weekly meeting I experienced in my career was just

Mathias Meyer (09:52) like 15 or so engineers sitting around a table in an actual meeting room and everybody just giving updates. That wasn't the worst one. The worst one was when I worked for a client, they did a daily standup and there must have been like 25 to 30 people in that

Sara Hicks (09:55) Wow. Oh, wow.

Mathias Meyer (10:13) standup. It was just, it was an incredible waste of time, but it was also just before lunch.

Sara Hicks (10:16) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (10:20) So nobody really cared and people were just keen, keen to get this over with

Sara Hicks (10:26) Thank

Mathias Meyer (10:26) and to go for lunch. So nothing really useful got shared. Anyway, like this, I mean, it's a pattern that, you know, we've seen over over again that our, I think our clients also experience, especially as they move through this, the first growth stage of a company, maybe moving closer to 50 people where,

Sara Hicks (10:29) Right, Yeah. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (10:47) It's just gotten so comfortable to do this and as you said, these meetings just stick. it's there, impossible to change. Anyway, I'm very opinionated on meetings. In case anybody was wondering.

Sara Hicks (11:04) Lots to go on there. Let's try to get a little specific on what actually leads to these ineffective meetings. Like what are some of the...

Sara Hicks (11:18) I don't know, barriers or what are some of the things that you see with your clients? You you've already touched on some of them and I see it, I've done it myself and I've seen it with my clients, which is like, there's just no, there's no purpose, right? There's no like, what is the meeting for? What's the goal of this

Mathias Meyer (11:37) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (11:37) meeting? We say this, I think in the opening chapter of our book on the meetings chapter that,

Sara Hicks (11:46) No meeting should happen without an agenda. And I think that alone is one of the biggest barriers to meetings being really poor. What's the goal? What's the purpose of this meeting? And

Mathias Meyer (12:00) Hmm

Sara Hicks (12:00) just sharing that in advance. That one little thing without it leads to so many ineffective meetings. But I'm wondering if you had thoughts there on.

Sara Hicks (12:13) What are some of those barriers that lead to all these ineffective meetings?

Mathias Meyer (12:18) I think you mentioned these two, having a clear goal and a clear agenda. And there's, this is, I remember we, was facilitating a meeting once with a leadership team and the goal was always to have the agenda ready the day before so that people could actually prepare and on the day of the meeting.

Sara Hicks (12:39) you you

Mathias Meyer (12:45) There was nothing on the agenda. Nobody had contributed anything. And then I was like, okay, I'm just, there's nothing on here. I'm canceling the meeting. And that was almost shocking to people. Like that this is a thing that you could do. There were some protests that, you know, even

Sara Hicks (13:07) You

Mathias Meyer (13:09) without an agenda, this meeting serves maybe a social purpose.

Mathias Meyer (13:14) Right? And that, you know, it's nice to see people. And I do get that. But maybe there are better ways to achieve that. And I think you gave this a name later on. Just canceling a meeting that doesn't have a purpose or an agenda. You called this pulling a Mathias. Which is also how we reference in our book. So I invite everybody.

Mathias Meyer (13:41) to pull to Mathias on meetings that serve no purpose. That's probably the most common one. Like everybody gets, like when I talk to people about meetings and I even just mention a meeting that has the title, that has ⁓ sync in the title, like sync on something, like,

Sara Hicks (13:58) Or check in.

Mathias Meyer (13:59) or check in, ⁓ that those are the meetings that usually just show up on your calendar. ⁓ And ⁓ well, who knows what could happen.

Mathias Meyer (14:10) Right? Like if you are someone's boss, like you're just, this is going to be your medium. and if you're, you know, a person who isn't the boss on the receiving end of that, you will probably spend days wondering what this meeting is about, whether you're going to get some terrible feedback, whether you're going to be fired, all the worst things that you can think of. So there's, you know, there's good reasons to be, to be explicit, to be intentional about.

Mathias Meyer (14:39) this part of the meeting, right? Even though it might not work 100

Sara Hicks (14:40) Right.

Mathias Meyer (14:43) % of the time, some meetings you wanna hide on the calendar, but anyway. Try, like, but it is funny, like just talking about a sync meeting, everybody already knows. Yes, these are usually the impromptu ones that show up and we're just like, what are we gonna talk about? I don't know.

Sara Hicks (14:48) Yep. Yeah.

Sara Hicks (15:07) Yeah. I mean, I think one of the other things I've seen is, well, the most common thing I think that

Sara Hicks (15:13) I've seen that leads to these ineffective meetings is no agenda, no purpose, no goal, certainly nothing that's shared in advance. Like that's number one. But then this closely followed the second thing I've seen and I see repeated time and time again is even if you do do the step of sharing an agenda, preparing in advance, if you don't have a plan for how you're going to facilitate the meeting.

Sara Hicks (15:42) coordinated if you are the owner of the meeting you're the one who is facilitating the meeting like it's often people do all this work you know to get to the meeting and then they don't think about how they're gonna get the most out of the actual meeting time and how they're

Mathias Meyer (15:59) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (16:01) What sort of facilitation they're going to You know, they're going to do to actually achieve those goals and those outcomes and that's

Sara Hicks (16:13) really, really challenging. And it's a skill that

Mathias Meyer (16:15) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (16:16) we learn, but I don't think we actually, as leaders and managers, put enough time into helping people to learn how to facilitate different facilitation techniques. All sorts of ways you can work a group of people to achieve an outcome. So you don't have the hog, you don't have,

Mathias Meyer (16:37) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (16:39) or you're less likely to have a

Sara Hicks (16:43) you know, someone who takes up a bunch of the time and the space because they're the loudest voices or they're the extrovert, but you try to make it so that it's more, everyone's voice can be heard. So those are all techniques

Mathias Meyer (16:55) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (16:56) that I think are really important to think about up front if you are the facilitator.

Mathias Meyer (17:01) Yeah, and I mean, not everybody is up to it to tell somebody to, well, to stop talking basically and just, it's maybe there's also power dynamic involved. But again, I think that, know, starting, showing this as a manager or whoever is the boss in the room that this is okay. And also that it's

Sara Hicks (17:23) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (17:25) okay to be called out when you start hogging a room.

Sara Hicks (17:29) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (17:29) is

Mathias Meyer (17:30) an important step here. And I think

Sara Hicks (17:32) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (17:33) what we did, what I always like to do with any kind of responsibility is to rotate it so that it's not a single person who always bears that responsibility, but that the

Sara Hicks (17:44) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (17:46) responsibilities of facilitating of whatever else is important, facilitating, maybe checking time, maybe taking notes.

Mathias Meyer (17:58) however that is distributed, that these responsibilities are distributed, right? Then everybody gets to observe other folks doing it, pick up some skills, and they just get to do that. Maybe also they get to be the person who tells the boss to shut up for a moment and let someone else talk. And I I hope that even as the boss, people take that, you know, gracefully and accept that they're not there to hog a meeting.

Sara Hicks (18:26) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (18:27) But think the rotating part here is a key for me to make sure that as many people as possible pick up these skills.

Sara Hicks (18:38) Yep, it's a great reminder. And all of it, not just the facilitation, then someone who takes the meeting notes, just continue to rotate that. What? I think we've covered a lot of the what makes them ineffective. What?

Sara Hicks (18:58) What are they good for? are some of the things that... I mean, you and I talk a lot about how so much of our coaching conversations come back to people not operating from shared assumptions or shared expectations. like, maybe the meetings are, can be, I should say can be a good place for moving towards...

Sara Hicks (19:28) clarity and moving towards clear expectations. Are we clear

Mathias Meyer (19:32) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (19:32) on what we're trying to achieve, right?

Mathias Meyer (19:35) So you mean alignment.

Sara Hicks (19:37) I was trying not to use the word. was trying, I

Sara Hicks (19:39) was trying to avoid avoid avoid the business buzzword. Um, but yeah, it's

Sara Hicks (19:47) That's the hardest thing, right, is to operate from shared expectations and it's so easy to diverge. And so can the meeting be a place where, you know, the point of the meeting is try to be clear on assumptions and expectations? I mean,

Mathias Meyer (20:03) Hmm

Sara Hicks (20:04) it's the one place, especially for hybrid teams or remote teams, where a group of people are focused ideally on the same information at the same time.

Sara Hicks (20:15) Now that may not always

Mathias Meyer (20:15) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (20:16) be even in a meeting, it is one of the one of the places, right?

Mathias Meyer (20:21) Yeah, very true. And I think that's, I mean, that's where a meeting serves a good purpose, right? maybe instead of the word alignment, maybe to get people on the same page or maybe to use a more visceral image where everybody leaves the meeting nodding, which means that it's clear either what was decided or it's clear what happens next.

Sara Hicks (20:50) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (20:51) All right, after this meeting and not, I think those are the two ideas for me for a meeting that either of those two clarity exists and maybe whatever else might be a purpose or on the agenda might not actually be useful to have on a meeting agenda, but rather use a different way of communicating. think meetings have gotten

Sara Hicks (20:57) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (21:18) Maybe ever since they were invented, whenever that was, maybe during Greek times, but maybe in the modern business, in the modern business worlds, they've just become a really, they've gotten a really bad reputation, which is kind of a shame because I mean, A, is, know, if you're part of a meeting where you know the right people are there, the people that should be there are there, everybody gets their say.

Mathias Meyer (21:47) And in the end, everybody is just, yes, this is what's happening and leaves the meeting with clarity. I do love those meetings, right? Where you feel more

Sara Hicks (21:58) Yeah. Yeah. We.

Mathias Meyer (22:03) energized afterwards than at the beginning, or at least now you know, I haven't lost a lot of motivation. Which again, it's unfortunate that this doesn't happen a lot with meetings. Anyway, yeah.

Mathias Meyer (22:17) I think you're getting it right. There's a group present. Ideally the group is focused on one or two things. Everybody's listening, everybody's paying attention and everybody understands what's being said and what's being decided. And there's

Sara Hicks (22:33) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (22:35) just a nice energy that can come from that that just doesn't exist when you just share a document that's been decided without further commentary.

Mathias Meyer (22:48) and hope everybody gets it.

Sara Hicks (22:52) Yeah, Hope, cross your fingers, cross your toes. yeah. Maybe we should shift, you know, we're, I'm in Los Angeles, you're in Berlin, most of our meetings are virtual. But as I was thinking about this episode, like, you know, what is, and I talked with some of my clients about it, but.

Sara Hicks (23:15) You know, running a meeting in person versus virtual is, well, it's very, very different.

Mathias Meyer (23:24) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (23:24) Like, does that come up in your coaching? I'm curious, like, it like when and how to run different types of meetings based on the outcomes or the purpose? Like, in a lot of companies, it's just not possible to get together frequently in person because they're either fully remote or so geographically distributed so they can only get together.

Sara Hicks (23:46) maybe once a year. But

Mathias Meyer (23:48) Hmm

Sara Hicks (23:49) does that come up at all in your coaching practice? Like when and how to run it?

Mathias Meyer (23:57) to run meetings in remote teams or?

Sara Hicks (24:01) Yeah, in person versus virtual basically.

Mathias Meyer (24:04) okay.

Mathias Meyer (24:08) It does come up yes, because I mean the Probably the majority of my clients are now just especially more on the engineering side or There's some level of being distributed Whatever and some level I mean some companies are limited to We only hire maybe one time zone time zone away from us and

Sara Hicks (24:32) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (24:35) others only

Mathias Meyer (24:36) You know, example, only hire in Germany. ⁓ But it doesn't matter where. ⁓ I've seen ⁓ several of these things and ⁓ maybe the distinction for many of them ⁓ is like everything that is maybe that is part of the everyday or every week cycle that is, ⁓ you know, it's a team meeting. It is a meeting where, ⁓

Mathias Meyer (25:04) Decisions are made that aren't super high stakes meaning they don't you know necessarily impact the entire company Maybe they decide on maybe it's a planning meeting maybe it's a retrospective on How how the last iteration went or maybe even the last quarter? All of the work, you know stand up also many people still do that

Sara Hicks (25:28) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (25:33) Those things people don't mind being, you know, be having virtual. Although, mean, the fun thing about a stand up was the idea of it was that people stand up, which,

Sara Hicks (25:45) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (25:47) so that it's fast, which of course is not happening in most remote settings unless someone is actually at their desk.

Mathias Meyer (25:59) I mean, what many, what I still hear and what I also feel is that these meetings, they lack a little something, something, right? They lack a little of the good energy that come from, can come from meetings, right? But I mean,

Sara Hicks (26:12) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (26:14) you made a conscious choice to hire people, in different places. and so there's a, you know, there's a physical impediment of getting them together for all of these meetings. It makes no sense. Like if you're not open to this.

Mathias Meyer (26:29) to this idea of that meetings run like this, like we're recording this, then, you know, maybe you shouldn't have decided that that's a good thing to do. And then

Sara Hicks (26:41) Right.

Mathias Meyer (26:43) to the other side of your question, the, does physical presence make sense? I think a lot in this about like off-sites or meetings where something

Sara Hicks (26:47) . .

Mathias Meyer (26:57) Maybe if it's a quarterly planning meeting, maybe it's a strategy meeting. Maybe it's like we're deciding the key themes for the next quarter or whatever time frame. Or even just the planning season. mean, we're getting close to planning season. And it

Sara Hicks (27:17) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (27:19) can make sense to spend a week in person or a couple of days to really hammer this out.

Mathias Meyer (27:27) and I think there's, mean, specifically, I'm talking about meetings that take at least a day, right? It's not like

Sara Hicks (27:34) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (27:36) you're, you're getting people together for, for half day for a couple of hours or even just one hour. That makes no sense because it's very expensive. not just in terms of travel potentially, but also in terms of time. and I'm just thinking about in these meetings, there is

Mathias Meyer (27:53) It is useful to have people in a room because that also means they're even more focused. Right? Might not be true still for everybody,

Sara Hicks (27:59) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (28:03) but it's easier to tell somebody to see is somebody picking up their phone, is somebody picking, you know, using their laptop and things like that. I think that's one type of meaning I'm thinking about. And I have another, but maybe, maybe there's some stuff you want to throw in on this as well.

Sara Hicks (28:19) Yeah, I was just thinking about like one of the considerations that I always think about before deciding like.

Sara Hicks (28:30) how I'm going to host the meeting or how I'm going to facilitate is how well does the group know each other? What are the group dynamics for this particular

Mathias Meyer (28:38) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (28:39) meeting? And then secondly is like how clear is everyone in that group, that team on what they're trying to achieve? if my answer to those questions is like, they don't really know each other and we're just rolling this out or we're changing this and it's not really clear, like something's happening then.

Sara Hicks (29:00) Then I think I have to kind of like step back and be like, okay, well, the group doesn't know each other very well. And we're not so clear on this or we're actually changing something. you know, like, um, then I have

Mathias Meyer (29:14) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (29:14) to cut. Then I kind of have to think about like, well, okay, it may not be an option for us to get together in person. We're distributed across too many time zones. It's too expensive or we're hybrid or, um, and in that case, like I have to,

Sara Hicks (29:31) Sometimes I, I've only started doing this and kind of think about, like what are the prerequisites? Like I want to get to this, this change, or I want to get to this, this thing, but I might have to do some pre-work, some pre-conversation,

Mathias Meyer (29:46) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (29:47) some one-on-one, some smaller group, some team building conversations and, and, meetings before I jump into this bigger topic or goal. And,

Sara Hicks (30:00) I don't know, that's all stuff that I think we just kind of gloss over. We just think, we got to change this. Let's quickly get everyone together. And you're not thinking about the group dynamics and not thinking about, okay, well, this will be much more successful if we kind of roll this out in a different way. I don't know, that's where my mind was going is just how

Mathias Meyer (30:21) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (30:21) important it is. Yeah, the annual meetings, the quarterly meetings, the off sites, things that are going to take, you know,

Sara Hicks (30:30) multi-day or day long. If you have the opportunity, yes, do it in person, especially if you don't know the group very well, you have an opportunity

Mathias Meyer (30:37) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (30:38) to do some team building, especially if you're doing your annual planning, doing some of that stuff in person. just, the results are gonna be better if you can do it in person, but

Mathias Meyer (30:51) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (30:52) if not, think about the prerequisites. It is possible, lots of companies do it all the time.

Sara Hicks (30:59) but you gotta plan kind of steps sequentially to get to the outcome you're looking for.

Mathias Meyer (31:06) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (31:07) That make sense?

Mathias Meyer (31:11) Yes, ⁓ I think even when you ⁓ have a group that is ⁓ chilling well, they're working together well, and they can argue well, ⁓ and also make decisions

Sara Hicks (31:26) .

Mathias Meyer (31:27) together, trust each other. I think what I've come to appreciate is ⁓ a different level of preparation, but still the more effective offsites or ⁓ gatherings that are in person to me.

Mathias Meyer (31:41) are the ones where people come prepared, right? And it's not like you start sorting through things when you're as everybody arrives, ⁓ maybe is jet lagged. ⁓ And then you're trying

Sara Hicks (31:42) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (31:54) to assemble to make a plan based on, I don't know what, how people feel in the moment or what people come up with. ⁓ I think ⁓ the effort that needs to go into preparation for even just in-person gatherings to me is also

Sara Hicks (32:07) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (32:11) usually underrated. Like I used to weeks working on the agenda, ⁓ distributing homework, like assigning people different topics, and then also asking them to like, ⁓ you're gonna present something at this, and ideally, ⁓ it's presentation and a supporting document, as two examples. ⁓

Sara Hicks (32:28) Yeah. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (32:37) And so you have three weeks until then, so.

Mathias Meyer (32:41) please prepare and share a draft, an idea with me upfront, not necessarily to give you feedback on the idea itself, but maybe on the format completeness and things like that. And then the same way, like spending time on the agenda itself, right? Like we already talked about like how important it for a meeting agenda. Like if you get people together for an entire week, you better be fully clear, like what is happening like each day.

Sara Hicks (32:48) .

Mathias Meyer (33:09) Like, you know, it's nice to leave some wiggle room for things because can predict everything, how long each topic is going to take. And there is probably such a thing as over planning these in-person events. I'm certainly been guilty of that. But yeah, as you talked about preparing, was like this, this, this is a thing that needs to happen when you, like when you, when you have

Sara Hicks (33:14) . you

Mathias Meyer (33:36) people who travel from far places, you want to.

Mathias Meyer (33:39) Make sure that time is well used and you're not using that time well when everybody scrambles ⁓ to ⁓ brainstorms just after they arrive

Sara Hicks (33:50) Yeah. Very true. Very, very true.

Sara Hicks (33:57) I think I'm jumping around a bit, I think of like, what are, when you see, or you've seen it, you know, with your own calendar or with your clients, like folks in this meeting madness, just meeting, meeting, not productive, they're ineffective, they're poor, all the things we talked about. What are some of the things that you do or try to do to reset?

Sara Hicks (34:26) One of the things we've talked about previously was like that meeting audit, like really looking at your calendar or looking at your client's calendar together just to see, okay, what's going on? Let's just look at the types of meetings and kind of start to classify them and audit them and look at who's in them, you know, how many of them are, you

Mathias Meyer (34:52) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (34:52) know, have a clear purpose.

Mathias Meyer (34:55) Yeah, and value, right? I think this the value question is maybe the flip side of does this meeting have a purpose? It might have a purpose, but it might no longer offer any value. And I think that that can happen like as you go through this audit. It can be a useful question to ask about the meeting and about your presence in that meeting or in know, like all the individuals who are in the invite.

Sara Hicks (35:23) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (35:24) Do they add value? Also, maybe do they get value out of this meeting? And then does this meeting still offer any value to the organization? And I think that can

Sara Hicks (35:36) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (35:36) be maybe a helpful framing for looking at these meetings individually. But I definitely encourage clients to do that. And then also to be open about say combining meetings.

Mathias Meyer (35:51) If you have two meetings in a week and they're practically the same people present, that could probably be one meeting. It's a very simple thing. If you have a stand-up, maybe think about whether that's actually still the most useful format. And then

Sara Hicks (36:06) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (36:08) maybe a third thing, if your leadership team meeting is mostly everybody giving each other updates, which is again, maybe is going deeper than

Mathias Meyer (36:20) the simple value question, then that's probably not a good use of everybody's time. And so

Sara Hicks (36:25) Great.

Mathias Meyer (36:27) these kinds of things, I think about a few of these categories like update meetings, meetings that don't have a purpose, meetings that don't offer any value or meetings where I don't offer any value. Those are some review categories that you can go through your calendar.

Sara Hicks (36:28) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (36:49) And probably, there's probably quite a few meetings that you can bow out of or that you

Sara Hicks (36:56) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (36:57) can just remove from the calendar. But even that causes like its own set of issues because people get oddly attached to meetings. Because there's a social aspect, because they might not feel like there's a...

Mathias Meyer (37:15) There's another forum where they can talk about whatever is being discussed. It's weird, but...

Sara Hicks (37:23) And

Sara Hicks (37:23) there's an important, you know,

Sara Hicks (37:28) hierarchy of you being in a meeting and like you being in that seat in that meeting and having that seat there's that like importance of hierarchy.

Mathias Meyer (37:37) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (37:40) Yeah I love that you brought up value and really looking at the audit as a time to step back and think of like okay not only is the goal clear or these meetings clear but is the the value there and and really looking at who who is attending these meetings.

Sara Hicks (37:58) you know, people often will attend meetings just because there's no other place or other channels currently set up to get whatever information they think they need. And so usually that happens because the company's growing and these meetings just have kind of lived on. And maybe it's a time to look at like, could you share this information in different ways? Is there, you know, other ways beside a meeting where notes could be shared or information can be shared?

Sara Hicks (38:27) in different

Mathias Meyer (38:27) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (38:27) ways, asynchronously. Yeah, I think that's a really healthy thing. Look at the value of each of these and kind of go through that audit. And then I think the thing you said, Mathias was like, what value is it for you? Are you just in the meetings because of your title? Well, maybe there's an opportunity to delegate or sponsor or to just fully remove yourself from the situation from these meetings.

Mathias Meyer (38:57) Hmm. Yeah, which might also change the dynamic of the meetings. and not necessarily for the worse because I mean, you said, like presence in meetings has different purposes, where it also has different effects. Like you can be in that meeting because this is your, you know, this is your pedestal.

Sara Hicks (39:19) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (39:20) this is your, your place that you own this meeting. This is where people get to listen to you.

Sara Hicks (39:26) Yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (39:26) or you're in that meeting because someone thought it important for you to be there and sometimes that importance can even just serve from I want my boss to be there to show them like I'm doing a good job. And I mean that's fair, right? But it's those I want the boss be there to be there maybe as a as a counterweight to something or to support me or

Mathias Meyer (39:52) for all of these reasons.

Sara Hicks (39:52) To neutralize,

Sara Hicks (39:53) neutralize something, Nurture.

Mathias Meyer (39:55) neutralize something. Yeah, all

Mathias Meyer (39:57) of those things that I mean, usually all of those things point to some unhealthy dynamics in a team, or some imbalances in maybe how promotions are done, or maybe even some level of favoritism, which

Sara Hicks (40:03) Yeah. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (40:12) is all not healthy. And it's like, the other thing is the presence of me, me, CTO being in a meeting.

Mathias Meyer (40:21) and everybody else in that meeting is reporting up to me, then my presence shifts that meeting, whether I like it or not. It's like Schrödinger's cat for meetings. Just

Sara Hicks (40:22) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (40:34) being there, you don't know what the meeting would be like if you're not there. Maybe it would be worse, maybe it would be better, maybe it would be as the cat, it would be dead or alive, but the only way for you to know is to participate in it.

Sara Hicks (40:39) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (40:51) and then see what happens. I think if it's a virtual meeting, there are now different ways you can do that, but also

Sara Hicks (40:59) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (41:00) nobody wants to spend all day watching recordings of meetings just to see what it's like. Sometimes that can be interesting though. I mean, for me, it's usually...

Sara Hicks (41:09) Yep. Yeah. I'm so glad you.

Mathias Meyer (41:14) Good.

Sara Hicks (41:15) I was going to say I'm so glad that you brought Schrodinger into the conversation.

Mathias Meyer (41:22) it is grave in Austria I stood in front

Sara Hicks (41:24) and

Mathias Meyer (41:25) of it there was no box on top of the grave but anyway

Sara Hicks (41:29) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (41:33) like the I forgot what I wanted to say about these this whole shredding is our CTO meeting kind of meeting kind of situation

Sara Hicks (41:41) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (41:46) but yeah it's there's plenty of reasons

Sara Hicks (41:51) I'll jump in and I'll share one thing about the meeting audit that I used to do with my calendar. And then after I share that, I want to shift us to one-on-ones because those get

Mathias Meyer (41:59) Mm-hmm.

Sara Hicks (42:01) a lot of focus and I feel like we would be remiss if we didn't have a touch on one-on-ones. But before that, so one of the things I used to do, and I'm just one of those color-coded calendar people, but I would actually color code my meetings based on kind of what type of meeting it was.

Mathias Meyer (42:19) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (42:20) And this just really helped me to kind of see the context of, I could see just at a glance and I would try to group things just so I didn't have as much context switching. But I kind of did it into three main buckets. The first was I called like just cadence meetings. And these are the ones that, Mathias, you've been talking about. they're the most common, right? They're...

Mathias Meyer (42:41) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (42:43) You know, they're the one-on-one meetings, they're your weekly leadership meeting, they're your weekly team meetings, or, you know, they just happen regularly on a set cadence. And it's the most common type of meeting, which also means it's the meeting that often gets the least bit of attention and,

Mathias Meyer (43:00) Hmm

Sara Hicks (43:01) which I think will lead into why one-on-ones become too routine. But that's not the first one. The other is like, I call it a catalyst meeting and those are the ones where something's changing.

Sara Hicks (43:13) or you want to

Mathias Meyer (43:13) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (43:15) brainstorm, you want to get people together and you want to come up with some problem solving or you have a decision to get to. And those are the ones that actually require the most amount of work, right? The most preparation, the most facilitation. Those don't just happen by getting people just to show up. There's usually quite a bit of work ahead to get that meeting to be productive.

Mathias Meyer (43:41) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (43:42) And then the third one, I think is, these are all C's. I'm just realizing this is context. What's interesting about the context ones is this is about learning and sharing and knowledge dissemination.

Mathias Meyer (43:57) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (43:59) It's the one I think that we take the most for granted. Our job as leaders is to bring everyone towards

Sara Hicks (44:09) common expectations and towards shared context. ⁓ And

Mathias Meyer (44:13) Hmm

Sara Hicks (44:13) just is making sure that everyone has a sense of what's going on. It's that head nodding. It's that like reminding. It's ⁓ sharing information. ⁓ It's being somewhat repetitive sometimes. ⁓ And each of those three different types of meetings, when I saw them in my calendar and I saw the different color, they just require for me a different type of energy ⁓ and also a different type of preparation and different type of facilitation. ⁓

Mathias Meyer (44:38) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (44:39) And I just think like, again, not taking meetings for granted if you really start to think about it. There are different types of meetings and different types of meetings require different preparation and different planning and different prerequisites. So it just kind of

Mathias Meyer (44:54) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (44:55) me to visualize it and then to actually prepare for my week ahead or for my month ahead.

Mathias Meyer (45:02) Yeah. I think maybe one thing also still on the audit, like I think that audit can happen on a individual level, but it also can happen on a team level, right? It's a discussion to have with the team, even whether a certain meeting is still valuable, what could change to make it more valuable, rather than just leaving it run for all eternity, which is also kind of

Sara Hicks (45:13) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (45:29) almost the other hack.

Mathias Meyer (45:31) to expire meetings without having to do anything. It's to limit for how long they repeat.

Sara Hicks (45:39) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (45:42) Maybe it's six months, maybe it's three months. Shouldn't probably be longer than that. People get very attached to meetings.

Sara Hicks (45:49) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (45:51) there's a forcing function that almost triggers the discussion.

Mathias Meyer (45:59) Do we wanna keep going or do we leave this as it is? Or do we need a different format, like whatever it is?

Sara Hicks (46:01) Yeah. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (46:08) I like this also on a team, happening on a team level for certain meetings, because then you don't always have to guess that people can understand that it's okay to be more open in discussions about vault meetings, right? And not just meetings

Sara Hicks (46:25) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (46:27) to complain about them.

Mathias Meyer (46:29) but rather to figure out what would need to change or what would need to be different for this meeting to be effective.

Sara Hicks (46:34) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (46:37) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (46:38) Yeah, I'm glad you said that because it's important, not just individually, but absolutely at the team level. And just some of those norms of, okay, we're not going to have recurring meetings that recur longer than 90 days. And that just

Mathias Meyer (46:54) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (46:54) becomes a, you don't set a meeting that recurs past 90 days. And after 90 days, there's an opportunity to step back and say, is this still serving us? Are we still getting value from this? Are the right people in the

Mathias Meyer (47:06) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (47:06) room?

Sara Hicks (47:08) That's a really easy thing to implement that will have immediate, I think, benefit. Just that alone. So let's just spend a couple minutes before we start to wrap up on the lovely one-on-one meeting. It feels like it's gotten a bit of backlash.

Sara Hicks (47:33) There's this anti one-on-one discussions. There's companies out there that say CEOs like, we don't do any one-on-ones.

Mathias Meyer (47:41) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (47:43) But yeah, what's your hot take on one-on-ones? Are they important? Why are they controversial? What's going on with the one-on-one?

Mathias Meyer (47:55) I mean, I do love a good one-on-one. A good one-on-one. Good, all again, being, you know, not necessarily meeting the same criteria as meetings overall, because they serve a different purpose to me. And part of that purpose is, you know, I build a rapport and keep, maintain a rapport with the people who report to me or with other people in the organization, because I mean, especially on the C level or as you move up.

Mathias Meyer (48:24) like it becomes more important to talk to other people. That's a relationship building thing, right? And just

Sara Hicks (48:28) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (48:30) being in communication, like what's going on with you, what's going on with me. This can happen in all directions. And then, assuming a company has an open feedback culture, like every now and then, or on some regular cadence, a one-on-one is a place where

Mathias Meyer (48:52) you get to share feedback with each other and feedback has a corrective part to it where I get to understand my blind spot and maybe get some advice on how to, what to do about them. But an open flow of also contributes to building trust, right? It's part of the whole rapport, things like I know you can give me feedback and I respond well to it and vice versa.

Mathias Meyer (49:22) Why it's controversial is an interesting question. not I mean if they take a lot they take up time right and I think everything that takes up time I mean It's always it's

Sara Hicks (49:30) Yep.

Mathias Meyer (49:38) always a challenge when your leadership or anywhere really like it's this it always

Sara Hicks (49:41) Yeah, yeah.

Mathias Meyer (49:42) seems like

Mathias Meyer (49:44) You could use that time more effectively for something else. And maybe part of this backlash is for, for managers, like we'd rather you spend more time in code or in product or whatever is closer to what the rest of the team is doing than talking to each and everyone individually. All right. do

Sara Hicks (50:01) Yep. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (50:06) just to add one more thing. Like I do see one danger and I've seen this with clients and

Mathias Meyer (50:13) Also with myself as I did my one-on-ones. It is tempting to use a one-on-one aid for updates, which is just makes them really boring. Or to spend a big chunk of like, here's what I'm working on. Here's what I'll work on next. This is what I finished. Where it's rather a meeting to discuss growth opportunities, right? Interesting new projects and progress on them that can help somebody learn new skills.

Sara Hicks (50:39) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (50:43) Buuuut... Where was I going with this? Uhhhh... God!

Sara Hicks (50:53) You were talking about, you know, they become about just sharing updates and, you know, maybe that's, they just become that kind of routine updates. Here's what I'm working on.

Mathias Meyer (51:06) Yes, thank you. That brought me back on track. The other thing that is tempting to use them for is to use them to spread information. This is different type of update, but say I as a manager have my regular one-on-ones and I use them to inform people of something that's been going on, whether it's the organization. Maybe there's a change like you talked about these.

Mathias Meyer (51:35) catalyst meetings. Maybe I came out of a meeting there and I'm using all of the one-on-ones in my team to give people updates on this. And where these one-on-ones suddenly turn into like almost like side channels where people

Sara Hicks (51:37) Yes. Yes.

Mathias Meyer (51:54) hear the same, I mean they hear the same. It is a telephone

Sara Hicks (51:56) It's the telephone game. It's the telephone game. yeah.

Mathias Meyer (52:00) game exactly. People hear somewhat the same information.

Mathias Meyer (52:05) which is probably not true, everybody, it's how I phrase it to everybody is probably gonna be different in every one-on-one meeting and that also means everybody understood something different, right? And probably not how it was intended to be. And I think that to me is a, like that's part of the danger of one-on-one meetings, but it's, and it's not like that

Sara Hicks (52:19) Yep. Yep.

Mathias Meyer (52:27) can be, that still to me doesn't mean like one-on-ones are a waste of time or anything. It's just like,

Mathias Meyer (52:33) I knew I had a manager once who used one-on-ones this way and then I encouraged them to just use a different channel just to share information, a written channel ideally, where they could at least be sure that what is written, what is shared, is the same thing for everybody. And then maybe people

Sara Hicks (52:53) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (52:54) can ask questions in the one-on-ones and maybe you'll update the information accordingly.

Mathias Meyer (52:59) But yeah, that's one thing that I've learned over the years. It's like that can make meetings, one-on-one meetings, not a dangerous place, but it's just impact a team in negative ways. will just phrase it in the most businessy words I could come

Sara Hicks (53:21) Yeah,

Mathias Meyer (53:21) up with.

Sara Hicks (53:22) yeah. Yeah, very very well said. think they're.

Sara Hicks (53:27) The thing that I really heard is that it becomes so controversial because they take up so much time and then because they take up so much time and they've become so routine. just these places for updates or for this cascade of information that shouldn't be shared in that manner or could be more effective if shared in a different way. And this gets back to why the meeting audit is so important. like really look at

Mathias Meyer (53:52) Mmm.

Sara Hicks (53:53) I think one-on-ones are so important for all the things you said, building rapport, for sharing feedback, for clarifying expectations between you and an individual. But if your one-on-ones have become routine and updates and really, yeah, I can see. They're not effective and the opportunity there to shift them back to something that has a purpose and a value.

Mathias Meyer (54:20) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (54:22) We're running on time. Is there anything else you want to add about meetings that we haven't covered yet? There's so much we could cover. could do a whole podcast just on meetings.

Mathias Meyer (54:37) We should schedule another meeting like this on meetings. I would throw in one controversial take. I will say like maybe, you know, just because I mean, I tend to focus maybe, maybe too much on the negatives, just for the meeting audit. I really like your three category distinction, the three C's of meetings, the cadence, catalyst and context, which I think is like, it's useful for

Mathias Meyer (55:06) a purse for individual for my personal view on meetings, but it's also good to give people this, to give the team this kind of categorization because the more common

Sara Hicks (55:16) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (55:19) notation for meetings is probably one where this is an update meeting, this is a decision meeting. And then the worst of them all is the brainstorming meeting, which this is probably would be my hot take at the tail end of this conversation.

Sara Hicks (55:29) Disaster.

Mathias Meyer (55:36) brainstorming meetings without preparation, just like off sites without preparation are a waste of time. It is utter garbage to get people together

Sara Hicks (55:43) Just say it, Matias, it's garbage. Just say it.

Mathias Meyer (55:49) just because some consulting company years ago wrote about how great brainstorming meetings are. Usually what you find in brainstorming meetings is an effect that probably warrants an entire

Mathias Meyer (56:05) an entire different conversation from game theory, which is the Nash equilibrium, where people tend to default on some sort of denominator. Usually it's not the one that you actually hope for in a brainstorming meeting. So I will just say, on the record, brainstorming meetings

Sara Hicks (56:15) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (56:26) without proper preparation, without a proper structure, are usually a waste of time. Whether that... it does not matter whether that's in person.

Mathias Meyer (56:34) or virtual, it's just garbage.

Sara Hicks (56:38) Yep, yep. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (56:41) This is gonna get us the clips. This is gonna get us, this is gonna

Sara Hicks (56:47) I was just looking at my notes and we touched on how important it is to have

Sara Hicks (56:55) to think about the facilitation techniques

Mathias Meyer (56:57) Hmm.

Sara Hicks (56:58) that are gonna be useful. We didn't really cover too much on the different types of facilitation techniques, but yeah, I mean, it goes back to if you're the meeting facilitator, you have to think in advance of the outcomes that you want from the meeting and then consider who's important and then how you're gonna.

Sara Hicks (57:22) how you're going to get towards that outcome or towards those goals. And

Mathias Meyer (57:26) Yeah.

Sara Hicks (57:27) it doesn't just happen by scheduling the meeting and getting everyone in the room. What are the different techniques you're going to use to get people to be comfortable sharing, depending on what you're looking for? so I don't know. just think that's certainly an area where I've underprepared.

Mathias Meyer (57:50) Hmm

Sara Hicks (57:51) And it wasn't until I really started to learn there are different facilitation techniques out there that can really help to get a group to go away from the loudest voice in the room to kind of more participation across all people in the group. I don't know, just wanted to add that.

Mathias Meyer (58:13) Yeah. yeah. I mean, that's an entirely different, sounds almost like a separate conversation, but I agree. Like I, been thinking a lot about this as, know, as I got closer to facilitating an offsite or even as I did my own offsites back in the day for my leadership teams. as you said, like those things don't happen by accident. Like a good meeting doesn't happen by accident. could probably.

Sara Hicks (58:40) Absolutely.

Mathias Meyer (58:43) you know, say that to close this out. It

Sara Hicks (58:45) Absolutely.

Mathias Meyer (58:47) takes time and again, it brings us back in full circle why it doesn't happen often enough because there's never enough time. And ironically, much of the reason for that is because there are so many meetings. It's just kind of ironic, but here we are.

Sara Hicks (58:56) Yep. Yep, yep. Yep.

Sara Hicks (59:06) We're here now. Okay, I love that. We're gonna close it out with the, you know, a good meeting doesn't happen by accident. But let's, since we did it last time, let's have a little fun closing segment. Is there anything?

Mathias Meyer (59:19) yeah.

Sara Hicks (59:20) Anything that you're currently reading or cooking. you just did some kimchi, I know. Anything,

Mathias Meyer (59:28) Yes.

Sara Hicks (59:28) any current thing you're enjoying, hobby, game, craft. What's...

Mathias Meyer (59:34) Yes, many, many. As you said, I made

Sara Hicks (59:36) All right, let's hear.

Mathias Meyer (59:37) a fresh batch of kimchi. I think last week? Making kimchi is an incredibly messy business. I have red stains all over my kitchen apron, which you gifted me, so I'm working to get those stains out. But...

Mathias Meyer (01:00:01) Making kimchi still is super fun. Like I made, I filled an entire eight liter or close to two freedom gallons, a crock pot with kimchi. And it is like, it is surprising of the things that you can ferment, how active it gets and how fast. Like it only takes a day or two for it to really bubble. And you need to be careful that it doesn't, you know, grow up, move out of the, out of the crock pot.

Mathias Meyer (01:00:28) I think that's been one thing. It's still curing in the fridge now. And I've also learned that there's a thing that like, fridges specifically to store kimchi that exist. I don't have one. I'm not planning to get one, but I love this.

Sara Hicks (01:00:44) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (01:00:45) I love the spirit of them.

Sara Hicks (01:00:47) You want your, you know you

Sara Hicks (01:00:49) want a kimchi fridge. You know you do. Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (01:00:52) The

Mathias Meyer (01:00:53) last batch I made probably stuck around for two years or one and a half at least. Like, Kimchi keeps in a surprisingly long time in the fridge and I just love Kimchi. I think the other thing I did is, this is relevant to a future conversation, I got my knives resharpened, all of my kitchen

Sara Hicks (01:01:12) Hmm

Mathias Meyer (01:01:13) knives. I have a knife person, which is thankfully in the neighborhood.

Mathias Meyer (01:01:19) I was also a fun guy to chat to about knives. Kitchen knives specifically, will just...

Sara Hicks (01:01:25) Hahaha

Mathias Meyer (01:01:26) I had all of those resharpened. A few of them are still there. Because I had to do this in badges because I just, needed, you know, knives to work with. And I was, it was, a, when I picked up the first badge, the person almost, you know, just pricked himself with...

Mathias Meyer (01:01:47) one of the knives because it was so sharp.

Sara Hicks (01:01:51) Okay.

Mathias Meyer (01:01:51) It had such a sharp point. And coming back home, was just like, it's such a joy to use. Anyway, I think those are probably the two ones. Like in terms of reading, as you know, I just picked up a big stash of books, so I'll probably have more to report. I've actually been reading a couple of Marvel comics.

Mathias Meyer (01:02:15) in preparation

Sara Hicks (01:02:15) Mmm.

Mathias Meyer (01:02:16) of upcoming movies. That's what I've been reading. But yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to doing stuff with the kimchi, specifically kimchi fried rice and maybe a

Sara Hicks (01:02:27) Mmm.

Mathias Meyer (01:02:28) kimchi tofu soup, which is also very delightful. And it is the season here Germany for those kinds of meals.

Sara Hicks (01:02:33) Gosh, I

Sara Hicks (01:02:34) wish I could just transport myself to your place for some kimchi fried rice. It sounds so good.

Mathias Meyer (01:02:41) My fridge smells really nice right now. Just saying. Thanks.

Sara Hicks (01:02:46) Let's see, made a, in this last week, made a ramen. I made a miso red curry kind of peanut ramen broth. And then I had tofu in it and bok choy and

Mathias Meyer (01:03:03) yeah, I can feel that.

Sara Hicks (01:03:05) it was, yeah, really, really good. Had that actually for a couple nights.

Sara Hicks (01:03:12) I just finished Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, his autobiography.

Mathias Meyer (01:03:17) red.

Sara Hicks (01:03:19) You know, this is probably sacrilege to say, but I've never really been a big Bruce Springsteen fan. I mean, just not really a big musical influence for me, but certainly appreciate him and what he achieved and what he stood for. And it's a great book.

Sara Hicks (01:03:41) Like it's so, I feel like I understand and I don't know. Now I actually want to go listen to some more of his music. he wrote it across seven years. He just comes across as very human, which I really appreciate and vulnerable and

Mathias Meyer (01:03:59) That's nice.

Sara Hicks (01:04:00) yeah, yeah, it was great. So I don't know what I'm gonna read next. To be determined.

Mathias Meyer (01:04:10) Good. I mean, speaking

Sara Hicks (01:04:11) Yes.

Mathias Meyer (01:04:12) of music, also went to see ⁓ Haim ⁓ in London a couple of weeks ago, which was, ⁓ I am on

Sara Hicks (01:04:18) And you're on brand. You're on brand.

Mathias Meyer (01:04:20) brand. Yes, I also went to see another band, but I will reveal that ⁓ in the next episode, who that was. But ⁓ super fun. ⁓ A little teaser, yeah.

Sara Hicks (01:04:28) a little teaser there, everyone. Stay tuned.

Mathias Meyer (01:04:33) That was super fun. They're like, they've been, they're a family staple.

Mathias Meyer (01:04:38) Like my daughter who is now 16 grew up with Haim And it's been nice to have a family outing and to finally see them play live. They unfortunately haven't been to Berlin in quite some time, which I'm, if you're listening, please, please come.

Sara Hicks (01:04:54) you

Mathias Meyer (01:04:55) But they're just, they're just incredibly skilled as artists and just also incredible live entertainers. It's just

Sara Hicks (01:05:06) Yeah.

Mathias Meyer (01:05:06) very joyful.

Sara Hicks (01:05:08) a good Los Angeles band.

Mathias Meyer (01:05:10) a good Los Angeles band. A great and amazing Los Angeles band.

Sara Hicks (01:05:16) Alright, alright,

Sara Hicks (01:05:18) I think we I think we have covered it.

Mathias Meyer (01:05:20) We have, yes, probably there's a lot more to cover about meanings, but we tried our best.

Sara Hicks (01:05:26) Yeah, I think this one deserves a follow up, so stay tuned.

Mathias Meyer (01:05:29) Probably, yeah.

Sara Hicks (01:05:31) All right.

Mathias Meyer (01:05:32) See you.